Part II of III, Please read part I if you have not already

Round 3: "Running on Faith" (Journeyman album, 1989; written by Jerry Williams).
With his third straight song from his most recent LP, Clapton waters the garden into a modest mellow mood. This is where E.C. gets Extra Careful. Subtle moments demand subtle moves and, piping hymn-like backing vocals, the band sweetens its act with a soft shower of quasi-religious sounds.

In his late teens, Clapton had considered a career in making stained-glass. Now, in his mid-40s, he creates a stained-glass milieu. Standing more still than his wax-figure self in Madame Tussand's Museum, his voice tries for a supernal feel as he sings a number that puts love on a religious plane.

This singer of "Running on Faith" appears to have a cabalistic faith in himself and his work. The man has not just survived, but has done so by staying close to his blues sources with an obduracy born of indelible conviction.

Clapton's love for the blues has been more than a summer romance. By dint of his faith in blues truths, he has stayed with the relationship through thick and thin; a solid marriage.

His song at this juncture has a hint of schmaltz to it, but the angelic texture carries it off. The lead-guitar underscores the gravity of the issue with a short solo. The big bright soft hands stand out on the guitar neck like headlights on the front car grill of a funeral procession. Carloads of congregated faces follow faithfully.

Round 4: "I Shot the Sheriff" (461 Ocean Boulevard album, 1974; written by Bob Marley).
Here our world-champ boxing metaphor permeates into a shootout at the fantasy factory between the sheriff and Eric. The band sidles out of faith-finding single-stepping and starts to rollick.

As the stage disposition becomes more buoyant, one wonders if Clapton learned the song to shoot at the not-so-moot point that is his fame. To be sure, in the high noon of rock guitar, he is the sheriff (even though he fires through Marshalls).

Think of it: the guy has had the rep of being the fastest — and best — guitar gun in town for a full quarter-century now. (A quarter-century is a lifetime in the ultra-speedo roll of rock time; truly, twenty-seven years was the entire span for Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Brian Jones, and Duane Allman.)

It was in a London subway station in 1965 that E.C. was sloganized into the best in the west. The graffiti said "Clapton Is God" and the phrase jumped at a full gallop from graffiti to grapevine to grand mythology.

Nowadays, the fame is off the scale. No guitarist in rock 'n' roll is more assiduously observed and talked about. If fame were a number, Clapton's would be infinity. He's not of this planet: he just visits for concerts and recording sessions.

So runs the well-oiled machine of his myth. He has won so many awards that, if his reputation gets blown up anymore, it will just explode. Then they'll probably make up another new award: ladies and gentlemen, here with us tonight to receive the first annual Rock 'n' Roll Hindenburg Award...